iRox: Working the night shift

Workers pave new roadways into the night as the iRox Interstate 75 expansion project continues. Here's a look at one night in the project.

Operations MOT manager Patrick Curtis starts his days off somewhere around 6 p.m. and works through the night along the 30+ mile stretch of Interstate 75, which is being widened to six lanes. Curtis may travel several hundred miles in the course of one evening, back and forth along the project. Tonight, he must coordinate three different lane closures and allow crews to tear up the old asphalt and lay down the new.

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Workers set up an asphalt milling machine which will remove an entire lane of asphalt several inches deep. As the initial cut is made, dust is kicked up momentarily before the machine begins grinding up the old material and spitting it out into a waiting dump truck.

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As the milling machine removes asphalt, the roadway left behind is checked with a level and adjustments, if necessary, can be made on the fly.

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This night, the northbound entrance ramp to I-75 off Bonita Beach Road is closed for repaving. A sweeper bowls through moving aside large quantities of dust and debris before repaving begins.

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James Abate of TJ Trucking waits patiently with a truck-full of asphalt that's been heated to about 400 degrees Fahrenheit at the northbound ramp on Bonita Beach Road. The asphalt will cool as it's being driven to the site but must stay above a certain temperature to work in the paving machine. Timing is crucial.

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David Martinez waits to begin the night's repaving process after the old street surface was removed. An overhead light glows to illuminate his work environment which on this project is only at night.

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Workers line up a paving machine and set the width to be paved. Because they're laying down asphalt around a curve, the track is set narrow and will allow a second pass to fill the rest of the lane with new material in one sweep. Crews ahead of the paving machines are removing the asphalt just up the entrance ramp.

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As the paving machine begins to lay down fresh asphalt, crews sweep excess material away and mold the still smoldering asphalt to pedestrian ramps ensuring a smooth transition.